"To be honest, it's very, very early in where we choose to drop our anchor in the next film, so it could be five years after the event. It could be the night after the events of where we left 'Dawn,' so it's very difficult to know where the story is going right at this moment because it's being written as we speak," Serkis said. "I know part of the desire for Matt [Reeves] to do this next movie about continuing the enjoyment of seeing these apes evolve."

But how quickly will those apes evolve? "Dawn" definitely borrowed notes from "The Empire Strikes Back," so can we expect a conclusion next?

"It might be three films," Serkis said. "It could be four. It could be five. Who knows? The journey will continue. It might not necessarily be summarized or completely fulfilled in this next one. The point being, eventually we know that we're going to end up back at 'The Planet of the Apes,' but whether it's this film or not, I don't know."

With "Planet of the Apes" as the end goal -- meaning mute humans and fully intelligent apes -- there's still quite a lot of evolving that needs to be done. If the third film follows Caesar, it would need to concretely set up events well into the future.

The sequel to "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is set to hit theaters on July 29, 2016.